Canada
According to statistics published in a recent study, New Brunswick’s institutions of education offer more online courses per capita than any other province or state in North America. According to TeleEducation NB, the distance education arm of the New Brunswick Department of Education, which released the report, about 13,000 courses are available from 22 countries in six languages. That means an average of 22 courses per 100,000 people.
New Brunswick and Alberta offer more online courses than even the leading American states — Indiana, which provides 12 courses per 100,00 people, and Iowa, which offers 10 courses per 100,000. Three of the top five leaders in North America are Canadian provinces, with Newfoundland coming in fifth.
— Canadian Education Association Newsletter
June 1999
Colombia
Colombia’s civil war has spilled over onto the country’s university campuses. The University of Antioquia, for example, is increasingly racked by clashes between armed militias representing left-wing guerillas and state-sanctioned, right-wing death squads. Several professors, students and administrators have been killed during the attacks.
The situation has gotten so bad that administrators recently met with leaders from both groups asking them to cease hostilities on campus. Most of the 20,000 students enrolled at the university are politically neutral and have not taken sides in the conflict.
Although students, professors and some 70,000 outsiders voted to keep the university open, the escalating political violence has forced many faculty members to leave. The student council fell apart shortly after one of its leaders was assassinated by a death squad member. Mounting tensions have bred an atmosphere of mutual distrust between students and teachers on campus.
— New York Times
Dec. 28, 1999
Mexico
On Feb. 6, federal police stormed the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (NAUM) to end the student strike, which has crippled Mexico’s largest institution of higher learning for the past nine months. Although more than 600 students were arrested, little blood was shed during the government takeover.
On and off negotiations between the two sides were not successful in ending the strike — even after university leaders caved in to most of the strikers’ demands. The strike was ignited on April 20 after officials at the university announced plans to introduce student fees for the first time. However, the administration cancelled the proposed tuition hike in June, and the university president responsible for it resigned. Despite this concession, students still insisted on playing a more prominent role in reshaping the university’s organization.
The takeover was the most significant government intervention since 1968 when a similar operation resulted in a student massacre that shocked the nation. Although NAUM has since been protected by law from outside military intervention, university leaders felt they had no choice but to resort to police action.
Towards the end, both sides became frustrated with the intransigent anarchic group that had seized control of the strike and refused to compromise in any way with administrators.
— New York Times
Feb. 7, 2000
United States
About 48 percent of the colleges and universities that participated in this year’s College Bound survey reported an increase in the number of international students they accepted in 1999 over the previous year. A total of 30 percent said they took in the same number of international students last year as in 1998, while the remainder accepted fewer in 1999 than the previous year.
The following colleges and universities accepted more international students in 1999 than in 1998: American; Augsburg; Augustana; Baylor; Bethany; Lutheran; Bryant; Butler; Chapman; Charleston; College of William & Mary; Colgate; Cottey; DePauw; Drake; Elizabethtown; Embry-Riddle; Friends; Grand View; Longwood; Messiah; Medaille; Missouri Baptist; Moravian; New York University; Oswego State; Presbyterian; Providence; Prairie View A & M; Purdue; Rio Grande; St. Cloud State; St Paul Technical; University of Bridgeport; University of Iowa; University of Mass, Boston; University of Montana; University of North Florida; Westminster; Weber State.
Schools that accepted fewer international students in 1999 than in 1998 include: Carnegie Mellon; Mount St. Joseph; Concordia; Creighton; Dartmouth; Denison; DePaul School of Music; Eastern; Hope; Lehigh; Kalamazoo; Lewis & Clark State; Midwestern State; North Central; Northwestern; Valpariso; Wagner; Warren Wilson.
— College Bound
December 1999
The most recent Open Doors report revealed that there were 490,933 international students studying in the United States in 1998/99. Last year’s total represents a 2 percent increase over the previous academic year.
Although international students only comprise about 3 percent of all higher education enrollments in the United States, their numbers tend to be concentrated at the more advanced academic levels. Foreign students represent 2 percent of all four-year undergraduate enrollments and 11 percent of all graduate enrollments.
Open Doors also reported that Asian students made up about 56 percent of all international enrollments in the United States last year. There were substantial increases in the number of students coming from China (10.4%), India (10.8%) and Brazil (15.3 %). The additional 9,000 students from these three countries compensated for the decline in enrollments from South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia — all of which were hit hard by the Asian economic crisis.
Enrollments from Japan — the largest country of origin for students coming to the United States for higher education — dropped 1.4 percent.
Europeans represent the second largest group with 15 percent of all U.S. foreign enrollments. Canada came in sixth as the leading country of origin and had more than 22,000 students coming to the United States for higher education in 1998/99. Mexico ranked 10th, and Canada, Mexico and Brazil accounted for more than 52 percent of all foreign student enrollments from the Western hemisphere and 8 percent worldwide.
— 98/99 Open Doors On the Web
http://www.opendoorsweb.org [1]